DMCA notices are meant to be submitted "under penalty of perjury", and false notices could in theory result in civil action being taken against those who send them. In practice, neither of these occur even if the sender is a real person, like a record company lawyer lending their name to complaint that are entirely computer generated, or, in this as in so many cases, a completely fabricated identity.
Requiring verification through government ID for takedown notices should be a minimum requirement.
We got told by the 9th circuit that false claims submitted under penalty of perjury are actually just "opinions" not capable of being proven true or false.
https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/ca9/22...
Yes, it's "I swear under penalty of perjury that it's my opinion that this infringes my copyright."
Creator's rights need to be safeguarded but the DMCA gives legal weight to people without legal training and when they fuck it up (accidentally or intentionally) they get the no-consequence "but it's just, like, your opinion, man, and no-one expects you to be a lawyer".
In this case the statement they checked off said that there was an unlawful reproduction of a trademark. There was no reproduction at all, since the products were originally manufactured by the brand. Boggles my mind how that can be an opinion.
But does that apply to a lie about your identity?
The "perjury" clause only applies to the claim to be authorised to act on behalf of the rights holder, not the claim that rights are being infringed
https://law.stackexchange.com/questions/51541/has-anyone-bee...
In this case, the perjury may apply. It seems unlikely that the person that complained is acting on behalf of whoever owns the rights to a 25 year old article.
I'd be curious if any prosecutions are a real deterrent - it seems not. YouTube has to follow the DMCA but also enforces its stricter content ID, with popular creators getting hit (and being vocal) and YouTube seeming to "fix" the issues (until next time).
Ultimately the whole system needs reform now where it's easier than ever via LLMs to send off these notices.
AFAIU, the whole deal is that the bogus claims never actually reach the DMCA stage - big platforms implement their moderation policies and copyright claim handling specifically to avoid involving the legal system. It's that intermediate layer that incentivizes automated, bogus claims, as there's effectively zero consequences to them.